What Can We Do On A Rainy Spring Day?

Rain, Rain Go Away

Come Again Another Day

It has been raining off and on for close to a week now with more rain in the forecast.  The rain isn't going away when we sing our little nursery rhyme.  If we can't beat it, we may as well join it.  Today we dug out our school umbrellas and went for a walk in the rain on our property.

We discovered that the world is a very different place when it rains - it is quieter.  We were able to hear the rain falling and dripping off our towering pine trees and we watched worms wiggling on the walkways and parking lot.  We noticed our green, green grass and the budding leaves on our trees.

So rain, if you don't want to go away, just know that you aren't spoiling our fun. 

In Our Garden

Today we were able to get out and work in our back garden. Maria Montessori's writings speak of the importance of a well-rounded education which includes rich experiences in nature.  When looking for a property for our school, it was very important to us to find one with a large outdoor component.  Our half acre of property allows us many wonderful opporutnities to explore and discover the natural world.

The children were so happy to get into the garden to plant some potatoes.  Our property is simply teeming with wildlife, particularly squirrels and rabbits, who love to munch on anything that we plant.  We have been very successful with vegetables that grow underground as the animals do not realize that they are there. (Details of last fall's harvest can be found under the Gardening label.)

Here are some pictures of the children planting potatoes.

Potatoes are not the only thing that the children planted.  This week, R.'s dad gave us some white pine and spruce saplings.  We planted about twenty saplings along the back of our property.

The rain forecast for the next few days will be wonderful for our plantings.


We had the whole school out in the back garden and playground on Thursday morning and it was not exactly the quietest place to be.  You can imagine our surprise when we found a little toad sound asleep on our fence despite all the commotion.  We don't know how he managed to get himself up there but it was delightful to see him.

Happy Mother's Day

We would like to wish everyone a very happy Mother's Day.  We hope everyone had a lovely day!

The children gave their mothers a Christmas cactus along with a card and picture (photo follows).  We would like to share our Christmas cactus planting experience with you.  Way back in January, one of our parents, V.'s and E.'s mom, gave us a portion of her large Christmas cactus plant.  This cactus plant provided us with a lovely opportunity for the children to experience another way of starting a plant, besides planting seeds. 

This is what we did.  The children made cuttings from the original plant. They then put some potting soil in a pot and placed some cuttings in the soil.  

Over the next few months we placed them in the sun in the upstairs classroom and watered them sparingly.  The plants thrived and every single one survived!  In November/December their mothers can look forward to beautiful white and pink blooms.

We also made a card for our mothers by asking the children a few questions about their mothers.  Some of the answers were hillarious while others truly touched our hearts.  Here is one of the cards.